


To Fix What Was Broken

by kyburg



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: But it's okay because they asked for it, M/M, Slashy, Unreliable Narrator, Writen on a dare, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-18
Updated: 2007-11-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1641443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyburg/pseuds/kyburg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Could Dilandau ever be anything but trouble to Van Fanel?</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fix What Was Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miang](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miang/gifts).



> Thanks for the challenge - sorry for the brevity, this easily could have lasted for tens of pages longer, but the constraints of the holiday season force me to keep it short, sweet and to the point. Thanks! (Hope you enjoyed it!)
> 
> Written for Miang

 

 

 

 

It was such a small thing to take for granted. Not that long ago, he'd have fought it to the end of his own life - and now, it was such a small thing.

To be jailed. To be separated from what little help there was.

Their audience with Dornkirk over, Van found himself marched down hallways alike in their unfamiliarity, behind the guard that held weapons on Alan who carried a still limp and lifeless Hitomi from the audience chamber.

Acutely aware that another solider held weapons on him. And he found he couldn't care less. _As if I'd be fool enough to make a move. Here. Now. Idiots, all of them!_

Think, fool. **Think.**

And kept coming up as empty as his pockets.

Marched into another open area, he could see their destination ahead. Three cages, suspended on cables, each one just large enough to hold one person apiece.

_As if it would matter if we were together. We can do little more than bleed on them at this point._

Alan hesitated only a moment before carefully placing Hitomi in her cage himself, caution and worry clear in his manner. Only when she was laying quietly in a posture he was comfortable with, did he rise and meet Van's eyes. _He likes this as little as I do._

I don't ever want him for an enemy.

He watched Alan as they closed the door and swung the cage out into the center of the chamber, readying his own in its turn. Silently, he was bade to enter it and with a irritated sigh, Alan did so, sitting on the floor of it, glaring all the while.

Him, they simply pushed in and slammed the door shut behind him. Sprawling on his face, he felt his teeth draw blood on the inside of his lower lip as the cage swung out into free space, rocking him back against the bars behind him. He could have slipped between them with a bit of care, but looking down he thought better of it. The only way they were leaving would be by the way they came...or on wings.

_Blood. Wings. My cursed blood._

"Damn."

"Van..." Alan's voice, quiet against the gloom. "Hitomi might have the right of it."

"To allow this to overcome me? No, no - and don't bother. I know that's not her way." He remembered her begging him to allow her some space, some peace of mind...but it hadn't gone that way. And not once had she abandoned them...but simply used every ounce of her being to come to rescue them.

_Please, don't count on me. Quit depending on me, I beg you!_

A low chuckle answered him. "No, you stone head. Rest." Alan shifted his weight so that he laid supine, looking up at the ceiling. "We will need to be ready to take advantage when the opportunity presents itself." Looking over at him through the bars, his expression was almost sad. "It's silly, really. Who visited you in Atlantis? Balgus?"

"Aye," he answered. "You?"

He blew air in a short bark. "My father. Gods, I would have followed him to my death had she not stopped me. I am a fool."

"You're stubborn," Van replied. "You're hidebound, arrogant and a number of other things...but you are nobody's fool."

"I'm...not sure how to take that."

"Take it however you like. You're no fool, Alan," he said, yawning. "Right now, sleep might pass the time better than anything else."

"May you find guidance in your dreams."

"You, too." Turning over, he grimaced. _With my luck, it will be Balgus chiding me for being so gullible and cowardly. Again._ Sighing, he tried to get comfortable. _I wish...I wish I knew what to_ **do** next.

I understand none of them. Of this. Trying to fathom what Dornkirk had gone on an on about, warring to end war...all of it. _It makes no sense at all._

Madness. _And what do I know of madness...I'd have to be a madman to understand it, I guess._

Maybe I should begin to think like one, perhaps. Perhaps I have all along, and don't know it yet. He blew air in another sigh. _What do I know of it. Nothing. Nothing at all._

Maybe it will make more sense in the morning. He sensed sleep on the edge of his consciousness, and welcomed it in resignation.

###

 _Pssst!_ Clasping a hand to his face, Van bolted upright to see blood on his fingers as he pulled them away. His cheek was burning as if someone had cut it. _What?_

"Oh, is that how it works? Wonderful!"

He was in his cage no longer. He sat on the floor of the cargo hold of the Crusade again...near Escaflowne, webbed in for transport. But not alone. Following the sound of the voice, his eyes followed the curve of his guymelef's body to see...Dilandau.

Dilandau, perched on Escaflowne's left shoulder, scratching a groove into its face with what looked like a small knife. Turning to see him on the floor looking up at him, he giggled...but quietly. "So, you're here as well... _Van._ "

Van whipped around, scanning the cargo for signs of any other people, Dilandau's guymelef...anything else out of place. But - nothing.

The two of them were alone with Escaflowne.

"What, no greetings? Nothing? How rude." Hearing that voice again, everything Van had ever known about Dilandau screamed for him to grab a weapon and ready himself to fight...but there was no sword at his waist. Looking up to see Dilandau simply sitting there with both hands cradling the small knife in his lap, head cocked, Van realized...they were alone, unarmed, and aside from his burning cheek where Dilandau had abraded a scratch on Escaflowne, there were no other weapons.

"Then again, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. I've hardly been kind, eh Fanelia?"

He could only stand there and stare. Staring back down at him, Dilandau only looked subdued...even sad. Dressed in his uniform, the scar on his own cheek livid against pale skin, violet eyes only met his own. "Still nothing, eh? What a waste. I was hoping for at least an exchange of profanities. How boring."

He turned back to Escaflowne. "Boring! Booooooring! How do you STAND him?" Taking up the small knife in one hand, he considered its tip minutely before tossing it up in the air...where it disappeared. "If things had been different, would we ever have spoken to each other at all, is that how it is? If there had been...a perfect world, without a fight first? No matter. I'm not here to belabor the point. No, Van...I'm not here for that."

Van couldn't remember a time in his life when Dilandau had ever appeared and he hadn't been fighting for his life within moments afterward. That small knife had been the only weapon...and now it was gone. Gone, like it had never been.

"I'm dreaming," he said quietly. "There's no other explanation."

An excited laugh met his statement. "Exactly! Of course we are! Smart boy, brilliant boy you are, yes?" But still he did not move from his perch. "Van, you don't know it yet? No, of course not. Nobody tells you anything important, do they...."

Standing up, he carefully moved closer to Escaflowne's head...and gently buffed out the scratches he had made. Below, Van put hand to face again as the sensation ebbed away swiftly, with a gently underlying warmth that was equally disconcerting.

"I'm dying, Van." His work done, Dilandau turned to look down at Van and there was no mistaking the look now. "You have surely killed me, just as you did all of my Dragonslayers."

"I wished I hadn't." The word were out before he knew them. "They meant to kill me. But once it was done? They - "

He didn't look away, but Dilandau must have seen something in his face. His own changing, darkening, he climbed down from where he had been seated, to stand toe to toe with Van, hands on hips. "Tell me. "

He feared doing it. This close, he could strangle him, knock him across the room. Closing his eyes, he looked away.

The creak of tightly fit leather, the sound him moving...and then a gentle hand cupped his chin, tipping it up. A voice, soft as feather down. _"Tell me."_

Opening his eyes, he couldn't look away. "They...protected you. With their very spirits. They dragged me away with them."

"Yes, I believe they would have. We loved each other, you know."

Yes, that was it, wasn't it. Wasn't it just. "I believe so." Wincing, he looked away. "It was hard. Very hard. They did not want to be separated from you."

The hand remained gentle, but firm - but no more. "Van."

He found he couldn't keep his attention away from the pair of pale violet eyes staring into his own. Dilandau only cocked his head and blinked a few times. "So what your brother said of you was true, in the end. You are indeed...poorly suited...to this whole warrior thing. Pity you're so good at it, but then again, your brother also said that of you as well.

"I tell you this. And I tell you this - consider it a deathbed confession." Dilandau chuckled and his face brightened. "I've come to try and repair the things I've broken. Not that there's very much left to work with - I've always been rather...thorough, yes?"

Van was sick of hearing what his brother had said of him to others...whenever he encountered someone from Zaibach, it was all his heard. "Does my brother tell you he loves me? Cares for me?" he spat.

"Oh? Something I didn't know? Oh dear, obviously. He always knew where you were and what you were doing. I always assumed that it was the same for you! No? Worse than that!

"I'm sorry."

The apology stunned him like nothing physical ever would. Dilandau... _apologizing?_

He must have gone slack-jawed with the reaction, because Dilandau threw his head back and brayed, releasing him and slapping him on the back at the same time. "Oh, this is RICH! Wonderful!"

Then just as abruptly, he grasped Van by the shoulder with both hands and forced him to meet his eyes. "Van, I die. I die, I tell you! Right now, as we speak? I am being sent back to the Sorcerers in a drugged slumber...but I know. I know! I won't survive this. So - please. Please...let me leave something with you. Something useful."

"I...have...there is nothing. What - "

Releasing him, he stepped back, cradling one elbow in one handing, tapping his chin with the other as he considered. "Hmmmm! Well, that's to be expected. I've never been of much use to you, eh? What could I possibly be of use to you, neh?"

Despite himself, Van suddenly understood what Dilandau's Dragonslayers had seen in him. If he could be as tender as he could be violent and cruel...what a combination. If you could just duck enough times.

Even so, he didn't fancy the lives they had led.

"Tell me. How do I understand Zaibach? How do I understand Dornkirk and why this is happening? We were at peace...within reason. Compared to the war and destruction that has been created by Zaibach...this is madness. No reason!"

"You think you did something." Continuing to tap his chin, he then waved it away. "Forget it. Nobody asked for this. Zaibach? No one person knows...perhaps Dornkirk knows, but he does not tell many of us anything useful. Your brother? I wonder if they aren't at cross-purposes, even now. I don't hear the same things out of both of them. Confusing, at times. Hmm.

"I think your brother is more your creature than his. Now, now - hear me out...hear me out, Fanelia...be kind to someone who is dying, now." The words were nearly sung to him,

"I can't understand why you are doing this."

The light seemed to fade as his expression fell. "I was made, Van. Not born. I know that now...and know that whatever process made me? Is now failing, and I will soon cease to exist entirely. Completely broken, worthless and worse? A complete failure. I haven't even succeeded in the task I was made for...and you know what? I couldn't care a bit less!

"MADE, Van. Like everything else Zaibach has inflicted on Gaia. Artificial, foreign...and I can speak from experience... _badly built!_ " He laughed at his own joke, holding his sides.

Van could only stare at him. If he had thought this only a dream of his own making, he was quickly convinced otherwise. "There's nothing - "

"No, nothing. Nothing at all, and I'm glad of it!" Calming, he looked Van in the eye again, hands on hips. "So. I know what I've done...and I've done it badly. Wherever I go from here, I'd like to think I at least tried to fix what I broke. That's about all I can do, right? THINK?

"You can understand THAT, neh?"

Grinning, Van nodded. "Shall I get revenge for you, then?"

"Oh, would you? That would be nice." He then laughed. "Silly. Neither of us is going to remember this...perhaps. Well, I know I won't. When we meet again...and I think we will meet at least one more time. I won't know you. Well, like this. Maybe not at all except as a target, neh? We both know how much I love targets!"

Despite himself, he smiled...and then laughed himself. "You like gallows humor too much for my taste."

"Oh true! Very true, indeed!" Wiping a tear from his eye, he sobered one last time. "Van...if you wish to live...and for your loved ones to live. Zaibach can't win. In all honesty, even Zaibach won't win...if it manages it, because what they build won't last. I'm proof of that, take THAT with you.

"Believe in what you love. Build the future you wish to live in. Thinking is good...but don't allow the present to prevent you from thinking of a different future, a brighter one if that's what's needed to get you out of this whoring, warring RUT."

"What's going to happen to you?"

"Me? Oh, I think I'll just disappear and become something else. Something pretty like wildflowers or something. I can only hope. Who knows. A starry night. A nice glass of vino."

Stepping swiftly towards him, Dilandau again grasped him by the chin...and just as quickly, kissed him. Deeply, fully on the lips. He didn't even have time to register the act before it was over and he was catching his breath. "Sorry, " Dilandau said quietly as he stepped back. "I just didn't want to kiss that damned machine to make myself clear. Second-hand and all that."

"I don't understand you." Acutely glad that there was no one to see it, and nobody would ever know or see it again...he took the step forward, and enfolded Dilandau in a gentle embrace.

"I wish you a good journey, then. It's all I can do."

"Hang onto yourself, Van. I'm not able to do that, and you see how it goes for me. Remember your better self...the self you wish to be. All will be well, then."

Stepping back, they regarded each other. Turning away, Dilandau smiled and said one more thing before fading into the shadows of the cargo hold.

"Good luck with the chick. I think she fancies you. More than that other pretty boy, I'm fairly sure."

The cargo hold faded from his view as well.

When he woke, it was with the touch of Dilandau's lips on his own, and the last tingling of a scratch on his cheek.

And a plan forming in his mind, certain that he did know more than he did before.

###

 

 

 


End file.
